Thousands gathered at a rally in commemoration of the murdered opposition figure Boris Nemtsov in the Russian capital. Demonstrators have marched through the center of Moscow, crossing over the bridge near the Kremlin where the politician was shot dead.

At the beginning of the rally, Moscow police said around 16,500
people were taking part. After it ended at about 5 pm local time,
police said that according to their estimates at least 21,000
people attended the event. Opposition member Sergey Davidis said
nearly 50,000 people participated in the march, RIA Novosti
reported.

The rally’s participants marched in silence. Those in the front
row were holding a banner reading, “Heroes don’t die and
these bullets target each of us.”

Many were carrying flags, flowers and copies of Nemtsov’s
portrait. The mourners visited the site of Nemstov’s murder,
which has been cordoned off by police.

Even though the march was in memory of the slain opposition
figure, there were several people who carried posters with calls
urging the authorities to free Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda
Savchenko, including her lawyer. She had been detained by Moscow
on charges of connection to Russian journalists’ murders in
Donbass.

In St Petersburg at least 6,000 people gathered for a
commemoration rally at Marsovo Polye, local police said. Mourning
events were also held in other Russian cities, including Kazan,
Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Orenburg, Tomsk and Khabarovsk.

The mourning march is
instead of the Vesna (Spring) opposition rally, that had been
planned for Sunday, but was canceled due to Nemtsov’s
death.

The slain politician was one of the organizers of the rally and
called on people to come join it in an interview given just hours
before he was shot.

Thousands of people have laid flowers at the scene of the murder.

Boris Nemtsov was shot several times just before midnight Friday,
while he walked across the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge leading
from the Red Square, allegedly in the company of a Ukrainian
model, Anna Duritskaya.

It was first reported that the fatal shots were fired from a
passing-by vehicle. Later a CCTV footage of the incident emerged,
which suggests that a killer could have been waiting for Nemtsov
on the bridge and then escaped on a car parked nearby.

The footage is a low-resolution one and only allows to
distinguish the cars on the bridge and the figures of people
moving along it.

Investigators are currently looking into five possible motives
behind the assassination, according to Vladimir Markin, spokesman
for the Investigative Committee.

The politician’s murder could have been a provocation to
destabilize the political situation in Russia, Markin said. It
could have also been linked to the threats Nemtsov received over
his stance on Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris or the current
civil war in the east of Ukraine. The politician’s business
activities and a possible assault related to his personal life
are also being looked into.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised that everything
will be done to punish those responsible for the organization and
execution of the murder, which he described as “vile and
cynical.”

The crime has been condemned by leading politicians in and
outside Russia, with US President Barack Obama, and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel urging a thorough investigation of the
crime.

Nemtsov, 55, came into the spotlight as governor of Nizhny
Novgorod region from 1991-97. He also served as energy minister
and deputy prime minister under former President Boris Yeltsin.

After 1998 he participated in the creation of several liberal
movements and parties, serving as a member of parliament.
Since 2012, he co-chaired the liberal party RPR-PARNAS
(Republican Party of Russia – People's Freedom Party).

He ran for mayor of Sochi in 2013, but lost the race with only
13.6 percent of the popular vote. The same year, he was elected a
member of the Yaroslavl Region parliament.